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Saturday, December 10, 2016

CIA Report: Russia Helped Trump Win Presidency

UPDATE BELOW

Remember when the Goopers insisted that President Obama was a "secret Muslim?" Remember when the Goopers went berserk because they were sure Mr. Obama would "fundamentally change America?"Now the question is: How will the Goopers react to this CIA report?: A foreign government -- a former Communist nation -- interfered in our presidential election to get their preferred candidate elected. Don the Con was and is who the Russian government wanted in the White House.Let's sit back and read how the Goopers -- those oh so patriotic, American flag worshipping, Constitution fetishizing "patriots" spin this horrendously shocking news.I wonder if the Marine band will change the presidential song title to "Hail to the CHIEFS." Y'know in order to give Putin credit for helping the Goopers vote for a foreign country's pick for POTUS.Well done, Goopers. You can now pledge allegiance to Russia when you place your tiny patriotic hands over your easily duped hearts.

The CIA has confirmed that Russia meddled in America's presidential election and helped Trump win the presidency.

The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter. Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, according to U.S. officials. Those officials described the individuals as actors known to the intelligence community and part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton’s chances.
“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to U.S. senators. “That’s the consensus view.”
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The CIA shared its latest assessment with key senators in a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill last week, in which agency officials cited a growing body of intelligence from multiple sources. Agency briefers told the senators it was now “quite clear” that electing Trump was Russia’s goal, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

UPDATEFrom the HuffPost:
The Trump camp has dismissed the report(Of course they would. This is very bad news for the Trumpistas and for America. -- S.K.)

— along with the credibility of the U.S. intelligence community. “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” said a statement by the Trump transition team.(So the Trumpistas are trashing an arm of the questionable future president's Department of Justice? Not smart. In fact, incredibly stupid. --S.K.) “The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. (Lie -- S.K.)

It’s time to move on and ‘Make America great again.’”(Make it great for Vlad and the Ruskies! -- S.K.) (The claim that Trump had won one of the “biggest Electoral College victories in history” is simply not true. He ranks 44th out of 54 electoral votes of presidents since the 12th Amendment passed, Mother Jones reports.)

It’s no surprise Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted Trump in the White House. Trump praised the former KGB leader throughout the presidential campaign. He even called Putin a “more effective leader” than President Barack Obama.

No, Trumpistas. We're not going to let this scandal "go." A foreign country, Russia, interfered in our electoral process -- the election of Trump, according to the CIA report, has been compromised, and we now have to find out how involved the Russians were in helping elect Trump. --S.K.

And this from my friend, Michael K.:

"Re: Trump and the CIA
I am not here credulously supporting the CIA. It'd be the first time in my life if I did. But note Trump's response. He does not respond to the actual points raised against him. He responds by delegitimizing his opponent.
Always. Every time.
This cumulatively delegitimizes even the act of dissent, from anybody, with respect to anything he says or does. That pattern is far more dangerous than any single such action looked at individually. That pattern is that of a tyrant."

15 comments:

The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter.

Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, according to U.S. officials. Those officials described the individuals as actors known to the intelligence community and part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton’s chances.

‘‘It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,’’ said a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to U.S. senators. ‘‘That’s the consensus view.’’

President Barack Obama’s administration has been debating for months how to respond to the alleged Russian intrusions, with White House officials concerned about escalating tensions with Moscow and being accused of trying to boost Clinton’s campaign.

"So the CIA says Russia was reading files from both parties, but only released what they found at the DNC and not because it was scandalous, (because none of it is scandalous to them.) It's because it's in their interest to have a bumbling, blustering bully who can be reduced to tears of rage at any insult. And so they leaked and they leaked and Fox turned it into news and the trolls and creeps on Facebook turned it into news and the Nazis and the Klan, the Jew Haters and the Bigots all became Hillary haters and quoted fake facts and fake laws and fake editorials and fake figures and Trump won and Russia cheered.

Trump is still denying it and trying to smear the CIA for telling us about Saddam and his bogus weapons although that was really Bush and Cheney or in Repubspeak: Obama. Deny, deny. The fewer facts, the more you need lies to survive, the more you will be believed -- and the GOP needs lies! Oh yes they do!

So Mitch McCommie, isn't helping the enemy mess up the US government treason? Isn't accepting material help the same as receiving any other aid, like money or troops or weapons? Doesn't that mean you're an accessory if you help the Russians get away with it by covering up and denying it TREASON even if you're president elect? Sounds like it to me and by the way, just what is the punishment for treason? Is it enough to say LOCK HIM UP? or is the punishment worse than that? Cant we at least impeach him and all the people complicit in this high crime?":

To G.G.

It's treason only when the Goopers say it is. Never when their political favorites are involved in it. They'll spin this so it'll make Putin's Puppet look like an innocent baby and somehow it'll be blamed on Mr. Obama.

Once Trump is in office, all will be forgotten and forgiven. "Putin was just tryin' to help. And wouldn't it be great if Russia liked us?"

The gooper-in-chief says he doesn't believe it. He has said he knows more than the generals. I guess he knows more than the intellegence community also. Hell, he's so smart we don't need any of those agencies.

So, how are things on the north end? I'm still looking for a good recipe for panzarotti. Maybe I can get the company to send me back for the January round of resets. I'd hit up Umberto's on the way out of the airport.

Oh, and RNC hacks: The RNC did damn near everything it could to prevent Trump's nomination. So I doubt there's a trove of information that might satisfy your needs there. What, you think Reince Priebus was smuggling debate questions to Trump? Unlike Donna Brazile, Priebus did not work for CNN.

Hillary voters and Trump voters were very alike in one way: Both sets knew about very damaging histories of their own candidate. They didn't care.

Not having to pay back political favors allows DJT to be a little unorthodox in the way he has handled his picks. Had -H- have won we would all know that nothing would change, with DJT it is a different story.

Unfortunately neither of the former candidates were the majority choice but DJT won so for the next four to eight years he is the leader of the free world.Had the DNC not made their selection of -H- back in 2008, things may be different and it would be the republicans crying foul.

You do remember that it was the CIA who said WMD's and it was BHO who said Russia is no longer a threat back in 2012.

Five female cabinet picks and the leftists are still in a huff. Time will tell if DJT is effective being socially liberal and fiscally smart is something we haven't had in forever.

Is anyone really surprised by these findings though? It's been obvious to all but the severely deluded Trumpanzees that Trump was Putin's butt boy for a very long time. Thanks Trumpanzees - you elected Putin Jr. IDIOTS!

Your right skud, Trump greased the palms of politicians and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. He bought favors, as he said himself, when he called important people in government were there for him.

It is true that the CIA, like intelligence agencies in several other allied countries, fell for Saddam Hussein’s bluff that he still had weapons of mass destruction. But the overheated claims of imminent danger, and the ticking bomb of a nuclear program, came not from the CIA’s own analysts but from political pressure exerted by Dick Cheney and the Bush administration, which insisted the CIA’s hesitant conclusions should be discounted because the agency was allegedly filled with doves blind to the real danger only Cheney’s true believers could detect. Trump’s statement is a replication of that same debacle, substituting his own politicized judgments for the analysis of career staff. Cheneyism helped discredit the agency, and Trump is exploiting that discredit in order to impose more Cheneyism.

Next is Trump’s claim to have won “one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history.” This is easily falsifiable — Trump won 56.88% of the electoral votes, a percentage that places him in the bottom quarter of electoral history. In this sentence, Trump also states that the election “ended a long time ago” — a curious description of an event that took place four and a half weeks ago.

Having consigned the election to the distant past, the statement concludes with a rousing iteration of Trump’s campaign slogan. The progression of these sentiments is telling. It begins by dismissing the veracity of the CIA’s conclusions, and then immediately proceeds to imply that the truth of the matter is irrelevant, since Trump won. The CIA can’t be trusted, it all happened so long ago, but it doesn’t matter because Trump won.

And that is the nub of it. Very little will come of this, except perhaps that future presidential campaigns may have to account for the political risk of offending the Kremlin when devising their Russia stance (lest they be targeted by hackers). When all the smoke has cleared away and the outrage dissipated, the bottom line will be that Russia set out to influence the U.S. election, and Republicans in Congress decided not to speak out against them, and both their calculations were rewarded.